Literature Analysis #2

1.       The plot of Catch 22 by Joseph Heller is about a soldier named Yossarian who is stationed on the island of Pianosa in the Mediterranean Sea. His squadron is put into horrible combat situations and bombing runs, where they have to take pictures of explosions. Their missions are continually being raised so that they can never be sent home. Yossarian’s story is the main heart of the novel and almost all events are put through his point of view. Yossarian takes the entire war personally, he is angry that his life is in danger even though he has done nothing. He wants to live and become immortal, because of this he spends a lot of time in the hospital, faking illnesses to get out of the war. Yossarian is constantly remembering his memory of Snowden, a soldier who died in his arms on a mission, when he had lost all desire to be in the war. Yossarian is put into extreme conditions, where he sees friends die and vanish. Yossarian claims that he is insane in order to get kicked out of the military service, however it doesn’t work. As Yossarian continues to stay alive, more stories unveil around him. His friend Nately falls in love with a whore from Rome, who falls in love back with him; however Nately is killed on the next mission. When Yossarian tells her this, she blames him and tries to stab him.  As the novel comes to an ending, Yossarian troubled by Nutley’s death, won’t fly anymore missions. He walks the streets of Rome, seeing every kind of human horror. He is eventually arrested for being in Rome without a pass, and his superior officers offer him a choice. Either to face a court-martial or be released and sent home with an honorable discharge. However in order to be released, he must approve of his superiors policy. He doesn’t however and deserts the army and flees to Sweden. Where he tries to gain control of his own life.

2.       A theme of the novel is that you can’t escape death. Yussarions goal is to become immortal or die in the attempt. This was why he tried to stay out of the war as much as he could, by faking the hospital visits. He can’t stop thinking about death and the way that it has affected him.

3.       The author’s tone is satirical and sarcastic. An example of this is when Yussarion is ordered to bomb a peaceful undefended village. They do this in order to have the village fall down the side of a mountain and create a roadblock of rubble. The mission was totally unnecessary and costly. Another example is when the chaplain is being interrogated in the cellar and the officer asks him whether he was guilty or not of said crimes. He then immediately marks him down as guilty without any evidence. A final example is when Doc Daneeka is reported as killed, even though he is alive. When he goes to get his temperature taken the doctors say “you’re dead, that’s probably why you feel so cold.”

4.       Five literary elements that helped me understand the theme/tone are satire, irony, similes, juxtaposition, and personification. Satire example is when Yussarion is ordered to bomb a peaceful undefended village. They do this in order to have the village fall down the side of a mountain and create a roadblock of rubble. The mission was totally unnecessary and costly.  An example of Irony is having to be crazy to fly the bombing missions, but you can’t be crazy in order to fly.

Tools That Change the Way We Think

Extensive Internet/media/technology use to me is that it is the most convenient thing to use to look up something. When it comes to remembering the information that I look up I don’t remember it unless I purposely try to. There is no reason to remember it because if I do forget it, it takes me about a minute to find out whatever it was again. Knowing that the internet is always going to be there, and that it is almost always easily accessible, there is no need to force myself to remember things. Concentrating on what I need to do is more difficult on the internet than if I was using an encyclopedia. When you using an encyclopedia there are no potential distractions, unlike on the internet. I think people who learned without any access to the internet, would have worked harder at remembering what it was they looked up, because it was not as easy to look and find something.

In Search Of

A)     New information I learned was the fact that people with different interests can end up with different information when hey search a something on Google. Also Google takes into account 57 different things when you are searching something.

B)      This information makes me think differently about what I see online because it showed me what is happening anytime I search something. It takes that information, and tries to show me what it thinks I would find the most interesting.

C)      This video raises the question of whether or not we will be able to see what the internet does not want us to see.

D)     You can improve the effectiveness of your searches by using different ways to word what you’re looking for, or using somebody else’s computer.

To redo the Shakespeare search i searched used different search engines that i have never used before, yahoo and bing. The results i got on yahoo and bing were exactly identical to eachother. However they were both different from the google search i had done.

Notes on Hamlet

My thinking about the play has evolved by becoming more in tune with what is actually happening throughout the play. Nothing has really changed my mind about the plot or the characters. Going from here I see a dramatic ending.

Who Was Shakespeare?

We actually know very little about Shakespeare. We know at age 18 he became married and a few years later he moved to London, where he achieved credit for being an actor/playwright. I think Shakespeare is perceived by most students to be a pain to read/understand/comprehend. I get that to understand Shakespeare it requires a lot of focus and attention. What still causes me to struggle is putting in the time and effort to understand it.

To Facebook or Not to Facebook?

My initial impressions of facebook was that it seemed like a good idea to be able to communicate with people not only from your community but from anywhere in the world. The benefits of facebook are being able to talk to anybody else that has one, and being able to stay in touch. The risks are that anybody can see the information that you post or put on, and that your information could get hacked. The article and the class discussion helped me reach this conclusion because they both “showed the light” on many things unknown to the average facebook user. For example, when you take a picture on your smart phone and post it to facebook, if you haven’t disabled your GPS system, then your exact coordinates are posted as well as the picture.